My Grandfather or "děda" in Czech was attending Uni in Czechoslovakia (as it was then) and an angry little man from Germany took over and said all you students can now dig trenches for the occupying forces, he actually heard Hitler speak IRL.

He was asked why didn't you all just refuse there was hundreds of you his reply "some people refuse to did Guard shoot him and say "you, and you dig hole and bury him" after that we dig." so him and 2 of his mates thought that being part of this was a shit idea.

So they decide to escape, 1 of them was pulled down by the dogs and he never knew what happened to him. They did make it so Switzerland and they were assessed (I don't know by who) as displaced persons and they were allowed to leave Europe.

2 boats were leaving, 1 to Canada the other to Australia, his mate said "I'm sick of the cold so lets pick Australia" and that was it. When they arrived they were put in work camps (less shooting if you didn't work this time) and they worked on Gov. infrastructure projects.

It was completely voluntary, you could work and do as you were told (and not fight, steal, or misbehave) or you could go back to where you came from. They were paid, and a portion of their pay was held back to be given as a lump sum upon completion of their work commitment.

There was also a written and spoken English language standard that you had to achieve before you were even given the chance to come here. So he worked on the Snowy scheme and then State forestry projects for a total of 2 years.

As far as he knew everyone was sent out into the regions for these work projects, and they were very strongly encouraged to stay in the regional and remote areas upon completion, Oz had a much more generous regional taxation regime then which also helped.

He then met my Nan and they got married, even though he did all that it took many years until he could get Permanent Residency, it was another 5 or 10 years after that he could "apply" for Citizenship and it was by no means a given, any criminal behaviour and you didn't get it.

He worked his whole life including 28 yrs underground at Mt Isa mines, forced retirement at 55, he had a TOTAL of 3 sick days in 28 years, (he was hit by a motorbike and was in Hospital). He then retrained as a remote area Ambulance driver (Nan was a nurse) and did that till 65.

Till the day he died his accent was so strong he was hard to understand, his written english was perfect though. He refused to teach his kids Czech, "they don't need this they are Aussies", he was the most Patriotic Australian I have ever known.

He loved this country because it took him in and gave him a future and he never forgot it. He was also a very fair minded person, as far as he was concerned if you were a worker, a contributor to making Australia better you were a good person.

My family's story isn't unique 1000's of people, maybe 100000's of people came here that way. OZ gave them a new live and the nation had an expectation they would love this country and become a part of it in return, and if Oz is not their home they should go wherever that is.

So when people who immigrate here now don't become part of our country and don't appreciate what a privileged it is to be Australian it pisses me off, and for all of his life till he died it pissed him off too. He is buried not in the country of his birth but in his Home Country.

So when the media carry on about Australia being built by immigrants, they are correct, it was built by immigrants like my Děda and I haven't seen any evidence that the sort of Immigrant is in the majority of those coming here in recent years/decades.

He always maintained that all people should have to go through a work program like he did, it sorted the workers from the troublemakers (his words) and it also got shit built, where it was needed, without overloading the infrastructure in the cities.

That's my take on the immigration issue, for what it's worth, I don't know if a return to at least some of the old systems would fix the problem but as far as I can tell what we are doing now is not working on any level. Our cities are overflowing and running out of resources.

The regional and remote communities are dying, and the country that he was so proud to become a part of is in danger of ceasing to exist in any form he or any other "New Australians" as they were called would recognise, and that really worries me, as it worried him too.